I wrote this for the Endurance Nation Boomers’ Forum. But I welcome comments and advice from any and all.
2014, superficially, appeared to have been a successful year for me: a trip to the Boston Marathon, AG win @ IM CDA , qualifying (@ USAT Nat’ls in Milwaukee) for the US team going to ITU short course world championships Chicago 2015, my fifth trip to race @ Kona, and another AG win/KQ @ IM AZ. But I was fundamentally disappointed with my performance in my two A races (CDA & AZ), and @ Kona.
Looking back, I can see a number of issues which got in my way of a satisfying performance:
- My dance card was too full; having just retired, I wanted to start stretching my wings a bit more, and that resulted in a diffusion of focus.
- I had no competition @ CDA and AZ; each of those days (as well as Boston), it felt like I was just cruising along as if it were an easy recovery day, not a race at all, and I still had a half hour + cushion over second place.
- I’m feeling stale after 15 years of racing an average of 2 IMs/year, and successfully chasing Kona slots for the past ten.
- I have not been doing enough training the past year to feel confident that I can bike and run strongly on the windy days (20+ mph) we had in the three IMs I did.
During the race in Hawaii, and through to the end of the race in Arizona, I spent a lot of time (five weeks) thinking about my triathlon future. I started out wondering if it was time to just hang it up – have IM LP as my last race next year, call it quits after 30 IMs. I considered whether I should rest on my laurels, and move from being a competitor to a participant. Neither of those approaches felt like what I was supposed to be doing. By the time of the awards ceremony @ IM AZ, I came to the conclusion that if the competition won’t come to me, I will have to go to it.
This is actually not a sudden epiphany, but something I’ve been experiencing over the past 8 years or so. While local races would feature hard fought battles among 5-10 racers in the 50-54 AG, people started falling by the wayside when I turned 55. I realised I would have to start traveling and seeking harder races if I wanted to be something other than a big fish in a rapidly evaporating pond. “Regional” IM races started to fill that bill. It’s much more satisfying to fight it out with my age peers than feel out of place as the oldest competitor in the Podunk Sprint tri, or seeing how I would far in the AGs below me.
So, a long winded way of getting to 2015’s goal: For the first time since 2006, Kona will be my A+ race. Not coincidentally, that was the only year I felt satisfied with my performance on the Big Island. In recent years, I’ve been hamstringing myself by doing races soon after (AZ, 2009&2014), before (IM Canada 2012), or both (IM LT and AZ, 2013.) In all cases save IM AZ 2009, I boogered all the IMs involved, rather than doing well in one of them.
So after fighting what seemed to be an endless battle against the wind for 7+ hours on the Queen K in Hawaii, and feeling dissatisfied at AZ with qualifying once more to do a race I was not having any fun in, I had to take a new approach. I knew I wanted off the Kona merry-go-round (or Ferris Wheel, or roller coaster). I didn’t know what that meant, though. It wasn’t until the IM AZ awards ceremony/Kona rolldown that I finally realised where I need to be heading. In the lull between the awards and the Kona sign-up/rolldown, the 2nd place finisher in my AG came by my table and asked if I were taking the slot; he wanted to know if he could leave. I was still feeling conflicted about going back, still toying with turning down the slot. But something in me said, “Yeah, I’m taking the slot.” “You sure?” he asked, as if he knew I were ambivalent.
In that moment, I knew what I had to do: embrace the difficulty of the World Championship course (mainly, the winds and the heat), and seek my fulfillment there.
Which brings me, two weeks later, to: OK, now what’re you gonna do about it? One thing I’ll be doing is putting up a monthly report, looking for advice from the team and seeking accountability to the task.
It’s hard to know what’s the best way to go about training. In the past, I would look to my relative position within each of the three legs to tell me what I needed to work on. But, as I said, the competition is pretty sparse in any given race. So I turned to a specific goal: what would it take to get 10th place in Hawaii each of the past two years, 65-69. Probably a 1:30 swim, sub 7 hour bike, and 4:30 run. In the wind, in the heat. I don;t think really need to get faster, in terms of short course speed, on the bike, but I do need to be able to hold power better over 5-6 hours, and into the wind, than I have been the past few years. To get that, I think I need more volume, at the right time. Running: 4:30 is 20 minutes slower than my IM Marathon from a year ago, so I *should* be able to do that in Hawaii. Here, I think frequency, something I have always shied away from, is going to help me. This is basically trying to “switch-up” my training from the past 3-4 years. I won’t avoid intensity, but maybe only 1 day a week each for swim, bike and run @ FTP/TP type stuff.
Here’s my macro plan for the upcoming year, with the intent to crack the code in Kona, put myself in a position to have a satisfying race there:
- Nov 17-Dec 5: Transition – run 6/7 days a week, 3-5 mi a day; swim twice a week; bike a bit, starting to “commute” again by biking to the pool and/or track.
- Dec 6-15: Ski; continue running 3 mi/day as much as possible.
- Dec 16- Jan 26: Get Faster Plan, with extra bike commuting & running for frequency, not volume
- Dec 27-Feb 12: Ski; again, run daily if I can
- Feb 13-Mar 14: Get Faster Plan redux
- Mar 15-Mar 31: Tour the Atacama (Chilean high desert) and Machu Picchu
- Apr 1 – May 7: Get Faster III
- May 8 May 10: EN Tour of California: Big Bike Volume Pop
- May 11 – Jul 26: Train for and race IM LP, with HIM the weekend of Jun 13 (Victoria, Boise, or Boulder) Target 100 km swim, 3000 km bike, and 500 km run during this time. Spend at least two weeks training @ altitude in CO, dates TBD
- Jul 27- Aug 2: Transition
- Aug 3 – Oct 10: Train for and race IM WC in Hawaii; along the way, spend a weekend in Chicago Sep 20 to race short course ITU WC. Again, target 100/3000/500km s/b/r and 2+ weeks @ altitude.
If you’ve read this far, thanks for your time and interest; I’d be glad to hear any thoughts you have. A big part of why I’m doing this (triathlon) at all is to demonstrate what is possible for me, at least, as I age. So I see myself as doing this not only for me, but for others who are getting older every year, and trying to figure out how to keep the mojo rolling.